Life Lines by Dr. Dolittle

Physiology on the Road

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Importance of retaining sodium for land vertebrates

Peter Fuller from the Hudson Institute of Medical Research, gave an interesting talk this morning at the 9th Aldosterone and ENaC in Health and Disease: The Kidney and Beyond Conference. His talk focuses on the evolution of the mineralocorticoid receptor in vertebrates. For animals living on land, the receptor responds mainly to the hormone aldosterone. The receptor can also bind the stress hormone cortisol and the sex hormone progesterone, although progesterone binding inhibits the receptor. […]

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Evolving to thrive on land

Scientists Xueping Wang, Deidra M. Balchak, Clayton Gentilcore, Nathan L. Clark, and Ossama B. Kashlan from the University of Pittsburgh are presenting their research today on how sodium channels evolved as animals moved onto land at the 9th Aldosterone and ENaC in Health and Disease: The Kidney and Beyond Conference in Colorado. Sodium channels found in epithelial cells (ENaCs) are very important in regulating salt and water balance especially in the […]

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Researchers from around the world are discussing salt regulation and its role in hypertension and other diseases

The American Physiological Society is currently hosting the 9th Aldosterone and ENaC in Health and Disease: The Kidney and Beyond Conference in Estes Park, Colorado (October 2-6, 2019). The conference is geared towards researchers who are interested in epithelial sodium channels (ENaC) as well as the hormone aldosterone and their roles in kidney function and blood pressure regulation. Epithelial cells are found throughout the body (see table below) and are really important in […]

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Final 2019 Ohio Physiological Society Highlights

As you can probably tell from the prior posts, the 34th annual Ohio Physiological Society conference was a great meeting filled with exciting new developments in research. However, I would be remiss if I did not mention the outstanding students who received awards for their presentations at the conference.   Below are the 2019 Ohio Physiological Society Travel Award Winners (also pictured above). Each recipient was given $750 to attend […]

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New research on how treefrogs protect their cells during freezing

  Brian Stogsdill, Jim Frisbee and Dr. David Goldstein at Wright State University discussed their research at the 34th annual Ohio Physiological Society meeting on special water channels in the red blood cells of freeze-tolerant Cope’s gray treefrogs. These channels can shuttle both water and glycerol in and out of the cells to protect them from damage during freezing. Check out this video showing a treefrog waking up from a […]

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On the path to understanding the effects of white-nose syndrome

Molly Simonis and colleagues from Wright State University and Ohio University presented interesting research at the 34th annual Ohio Physiological Society conference on their work looking at the physiological effects of exposure to white-nose syndrome. White-nose syndrome is caused by the fungus Pseudogymnoascus destructans and has been blamed for killing millions of bats in North America. This new study seeks to examine whether pregnant female Eptesicus fuscus bats, a species less susceptible to […]

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Antarctic icefish do not tolerate rising temperatures

Antarctic finfishes may be facing rising ocean temperatures. This is of particular concern to icefishes, as they are not very tolerant of increasing temperatures. Prior studies have shown that this lack of tolerance may be due to an inability for their hearts to beat normally and actually collapse at higher temperatures. In a study presented at the 34th annual Ohio Physiological meeting at Wright State University today, researchers Evans et al., (working […]

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Ohio talks about physiology and disease

Researchers from around the state of Ohio met today at the 34th annual Ohio Physiological Society meeting to discuss their research. Although many of the presentations were not on comparative physiology topics, I found some particularly interesting and thought I would share them with you anyway. Here goes: Dr. Katherine Vest and her research team (Kierra Ware, Yu Zhang, Thomas Whitlow) from the University of Cincinnati College of Medicine presented their research on […]

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Mice run better with SOCCs?

The Ohio Physiological Society is holding their 34th annual meeting at Wright State University September 20th-21st! The Keynote Address of the meeting will be given by Dr. Robert T. Dirksen, Professor and Chair at the University of Rochester. Dr. Dirksen’s research focuses on how muscular dystrophy and heart disease develop as well as potential treatments for these conditions. His talk is titled, “Why do mice run better with SOCCs?” No, […]

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Working towards prolonged spaceflight

Spaceflight has always fascinated me. While long distance spaceflight looks so routine in science fiction shows, the reality is much different as we have yet to conquer the complications surrounding long duration deep-space flight. One issue is how to feed astronauts traveling long distances as we do not yet have replicator technologies. If we did, I would have coffee whenever I wanted it. In a new article published in Physiology, […]

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